


Winter Winds and Flowers

by PanAndProud123



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Stucky - Freeform, idk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28419189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanAndProud123/pseuds/PanAndProud123
Summary: Azalea Han, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, working with Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers? Please.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

Azalea woke up earlier than usual- five in the morning. Earlier than usual being half an hour earlier. She sighed and sat up. The room was a bit small, painted brown with a simple tan trim, the furniture a similar color palette. The furniture in question was a small desk, dresser, chair, mirror, and bedside table. On each table was a small lamp, each of them white. It made the pot of roses on her desk stand out more. The pot itself was a rich brown, the roses small and red.

Azalea walked to her dresser and changed into a dark green T-shirt, dark blue jeans, and a black leather jacket with red roses and green leaves embroidered on the sleeves. By the door was a pair of black combat boots and a pair of black high-tops, both with red rose and green leaf patches on them. The fifteen year old put her combat boots on and tied her laces. If she’d looked into the mirror, she would see a quite average looking tan-skinned Korean girl staring back at her with green and brown eyes. Her left eye was the green one, though a thin ring of brown surrounded the pupil. Her right eye was brown and free of green. 

The teen walked into her bathroom, completely painted white with a white shower/bathtub, white toilet, white sink, et cetera, et cetera. She brushed her teeth and looked over at the tray of make-up supplies by the sink. She shrugged and began applying black and dark green eyeshadow on her eyes, resembling a smokey eye, and put a thick layer of black lipstick on her lips. On her ears were a pair of red rose earrings brushed with black paint. 

Azalea looked at herself in the mirror, shrugged, and walked out of her room, locking it from the outside with a small key attached to her belt loop with a thick strand of black leather. You could never be too safe. The teen walked into the kitchen and got frozen waffles out of the freezer. She shoved them into the toaster, pushed the lever down, and started making some coffee from a black Keurig machine. The rest of the kitchen was a similar color palette to her room, though the appliances were either black or red.. The waffles popped up out of the toaster after a minute. Azalea got a paper towel and grabbed the waffles, guarding her hand from the heat. She put a tablespoon or two in her coffee and sat down at a large table.

She got out her phone, which had a black case that charged the phone when activated. The case itself was rather battered after being used for a few years, but it worked all the same. The teen opened the news app, her nails painted dark green, and scanned the headlines. Nothing special. A small walkie-talkie sort of thing spoke. “Nick Fury’s dead,” it said, an unknown female voice speaking.

The teen paused and tapped an app on her phone reading “Cameras,” but with a strange black and blue symbol on it. It opened to see what looked like billions and billions of little cameras. “S.H.I.E.L.D.,” she said in a commanding yet bored tone, like this happened every day. The cameras shrunk down to maybe fifty, but it was a little hard to see each one. Azalea took the phone in her hand and snapped her wrist outwards. Like a projection, the camera enlarged and popped up from in front of her. 

Azalea looked at each camera like an eagle hunting its prey, paying attention to every little detail. She pointed to a camera close to the corner and said, “Enhance.” It obeyed, the other camera disappearing so that camera could come to the front. It showed Steve Rogers shoving a flash drive into a vending machine. Azalea wasn’t sure what it was about, but she sure as hell was going to get it. 

~-~

Steve walked to the vending machine in which he’d stored the flash drive given to him by Fury. However, it was nowhere to be seen. Behind him, Natasha stared at his reflection. He dragged her into the closest empty room and slammed her against the wall. “Where is it?” he demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“Stop lying!”

“I only act like I know everything, Rogers. Where did you get it?”

“Why would I tell you?” 

Pause. “Fury gave it to you, why?”

“What’s on it?”

“Yeah, aren’t we all trying to figure that out?” A cool voice in the back said. Natasha took a gun out of a hidden pocket and pointed it towards the shadow. “At ease, agent,” they said. Out of the darkness stepped out a thin Korean girl with tanned skin, black and green hair, and brown and green eyes.  _ Complete heterochromia, _ Steve thought. She was rather average looking, quite pretty but not really, with a black fake leather jacket adorned with rose patches on the sleeves, a forest green t-shirt, dark blue jeans, and battered combat boots, again with patches on the side.

Natasha put her gun down, recognition in her eyes. “Who are you?” Steve demanded. 

The girl- teenager, maybe 13 or 14, raise her eyebrows and held up a flash drive- the flash drive- in her fingers. She played with it a little, manipulating it with her fingers. “Careful, Rogers, or you’ll never see this thing again.”

“She’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, the best of the best. Even better than me. Sure, I’m good, but she makes me look like a newbie.”

“Was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent,” the girl corrected. “Azalea, Azalea Han.” She examined the drive slowly, then plugged it into her phone. “This could take me a while, hang on,” she said. “In the meantime, describe who killed Fury.”

“Azalea, it was the Winter Soldier.”

The teen froze. “The Winter Soldier’s a fairytale. You tried looking for him and came up with nothing.”

Natasha sighed. “You know just as well as I do that you know something about him.”

Azalea’s expression remained unreadable as she tapped the screen furiously. “We need a computer, I can’t do this on my phone.”

“Azalea.” It was Rogers this time.

The girl sighed and kept tapping her phone, this time less furiously, more reluctantly. She showed them a picture of the Winter Soldier- Steve recognized him- and another picture of… Bucky. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Who’s this?” Natasha asked, pointing to the picture of Bucky.

“James Buchanan Barnes. The only Howling Commando to give his life for the war. Or so I thought,” the teen replied grimly. Steve’s eyes flickered to each picture every second.  _ It couldn’t be. It can’t be. Not… not Bucky. Not my Bucky.  _ But he had to admit, the resemblance looked somewhat similar. The eyes, facial structure, everything. 

Azalea took her phone away, turning it off and shoving it in her pocket. “You know him?” Natasha asked Steve. He paled, still staring at the direction of where the phone used to be.

“’Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country,’” Azalea replied in a similar voice to the man in the Smithsonian. “I went there to try to get more info on Barnes.” Steve looked like he was going to cry. Well, to anybody else, he looked far away, but Azalea knew better. She sighed. “Look, I could be wrong. Sure, I’m good, but I still make mistakes.” The teen patted his shoulder and said, “Okay, let’s get moving.”

~-~

The three walked through a small mall in god-knows-where. Azalea had ditched her old outfit and instead put on a rather pretty long sleeved green dress, brown ankle boots, and a small brown purse. Her hair was in a tight bun at the back of her head, the green highlights hidden well. “First rule of going on the run is don’t run, walk,” she said to the two in a hushed tone.

“If I run in these shoes, they’re going to fall off,” Rogers replied. He’d donned pair of fake glasses, a baseball cap, and a green-ish jacket. They walked in front of a computer store.

Azalea stopped and turned around to look at them. “Romanoff, you come with me in case I need you. Rogers, you stand guard.” Steve gave Natasha a questioning stare. She gave him a  _ just-do-it  _ look and walked in with Azalea.

Inside, Azalea plugged in the flash drive. She pursed her lips and started hacking into the drive. “We have nine minutes from now until S.H.I.E.L.D. knows where we are. It has a Level Six homing program.” Pause. “Fury was right about that ship. Somebody’s trying to hide something. It has some sort of AI installed, it keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands.”

“Can you override it?” Natasha asked over her shoulder.

The other kept typing furiously. “The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me,” was her response. “I’m gonna try running a tracer, so if we can’t read the file, we can at least find out where it came from.” Natasha nodded behind her. 

“Can I help you guys with anything?” an employee with long blond hair and bushy beard asked. 

Quickly forming a story in her mind, Azalea replied, “No, my aunt and I were just working on our next trip together.” She sweetly smiled at the employee. 

“Where’re you guys thinking about going?” he asked, still smiling.

Azalea looked down at the computer. “New Jersey,” she replied, watching a small red dot place itself over the map. 

The employee nodded. “Well, if you guys need anything, I’ve been Aaron.” He walked away to help another customer, Natasha muttering a word of thanks under her breath.

Steve walked into the shop, trying to look normal. He walked to the two girls. “Rumlow.”

“You said nine minutes,” Natasha hissed.

The teen worked furiously. “Clearly I was wrong. Relax.” A few seconds later, the map zoomed in to finally place itself on Wheaton, NJ. “Got it.” She looked back to Rogers, who had a look of recognition on his face. “You know it?”

“I used to. Let’s go,” he said. Azalea nodded and pulled the flash drive out of the computer, shoving it in her pocket. 

They walked out, Azalea feeling for a dagger in her sleeve. “Standard tac team. Two behind, two across, and two coming straight at us,” Rogers said. “If they make us, I’ll engage, you two hit the south escalator to the metro.”

“No way in hell, I’m fighting with you,” Azalea replied calmly. 

“Shut up and put your arm around me. Laugh at something I said,” Romanoff commanded Rogers. He complied. Azalea pretended to be interested in something on the display of a jewelry shop to avoid the S.T.R.I.K.E. agents’ gaze. They went on an escalator to the bottom floor. Azalea noticed Rumlow and thought quickly, mentally cursing. Natasha seemed to be thinking along the same lines. She turned to look at Rogers. “Kiss me,” she said.

“What?”

“Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable.”

“Yes, they do.”

Natasha pulled him in for a kiss. Azalea grimaced and looked in the opposite direction, trying to avert her eyes from the scene. “You still uncomfortable?” Romanoff asked, stepping off. 

“Yes, yes I am,” Rogers replied, following. Outside they hijacked a car, thanks to Rogers. Azalea jumped into shotgun and put her feet on the dash.

She said, as they drove along the road, “Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?”

He replied, “Nazi Germany. And we’re borrowing.”

Azalea gave him pointed stare. “You know damn well this car’s probably gonna end up getting crashed or destroyed or… something. Y’all have a track record, you know.”

In the backseat Romanoff asked, “Alright, I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer.” She paused. “I feel like, if you don’t answer it though, you’re kind of answering it.”

“What?”

“Was that your first kiss since 1945?”

“That bad, huh?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, it sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”

“No, I didn’t. I just wondered how much practice you’ve had.” Azalea rolled her eyes. They sounded like an old married couple. She tuned out their voices and looked out at the scenery. It had been a while since she’d gone outside. New York was two years ago... so it had been two years. Damn, had it actually been two years? It was a little hard to wrap the mind around. Then again, it was much better than, say, seventy years. 

She shook her head and pulled out her phone and the flash drive, wishing she could put her old clothes on. The teen settled for her jacket and shoved the flash drive into a hole in the phone, which conveniently had a hole (receptor?) for a flash drive. She opened the phone and patiently waited. Finally, an app showed up, labeled “Unknown Data” with a black cover. Azalea tapped the app, which showed their destination. “Phones,” she said, holding out her hand. Natasha shrugged and complied. Rogers looked at her as if asking  _ who the hell is this girl? _ but did the same. Azalea tapped her phone against theirs and quickly hacked inside to make sure the app was there. Then she handed the phones back to the spy and the solider.

After a little while, they pulled up in what looked like an old military training area. A fort. At the front said, “Camp Lehigh.” Camp? Azalea pulled out her phone, looking at the flash drive app. “The file came from these coordinates.”

“So did I,” Rogers replied. The two girls gave him a curious look. They broke in rather quickly, Azalea using a spare bobby-pin, and they searched the grounds. It took a few hours, and because it was already late, night fell by the time they’d looked around at everything.

“It’s a dead end. Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio,” Natasha said grimly. “Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off.”

Rogers looked at a building behind her. They could almost see the gears in his head turning. “Army regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place,” he said, walking towards it. Azalea and Natasha followed. The captain quickly unlocked the door with a simple hit with the side of his shield. 

The three of them walked inside cautiously. Azalea felt for the light switch and turned it on. Overhanging lamps turned on row by row. At the back was the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo from when it first started. Rows of desks and chairs were placed in neat rows, covered in dust and grime. They walked in, examining the room. Azalea felt a shiver go down her spine. Something didn’t feel right. 


	3. Chapter 3

They walked into what seemed to be a large cubicle. In front of them were old pictures framed and hung on the wall, black and white. Azalea recognized Howard Stark back when he was younger and Peggy Carter. “That’s Howard Stark,” she said faintly.

“Who’s the girl?” Natasha asked, pointing to the picture to the right. 

Rogers replied, after a moment, “Peggy. Peggy Carter.”

“She helped found S.H.I.E.L.D. with Howard, eventually became the director in… let’s see, it was the Cold War, so the 1970’s.” Azalea looked to Rogers, then to what looked like a bookshelf. Rogers followed her gaze, and the three walked towards it.

Noticing a crack between two shelves, Rogers said, “If you’re already working in a secret office…” he pulled the shelves apart to reveal an elevator.

“Why do you need to hide the elevator?” Azalea finished. They glanced at each other and walked to the keypad. Azalea took her phone and opened a second “Camera” app, this time with a red symbol. It scanned the keypad with a blue-green light, showing a black screen with a green fingerprint and neon blue numbers on it. She punched the numbers in, and a bell in the elevator rang. The three walked in and took a short trip down, finally landing in utter darkness.

Of course, they stepped inside, looking back at the elevator when it closed. However, as Azalea reached for the flashlight button on her phone, the lights turned on. What looked like close to a hundred pieces of old, old technology. “This can’t be the data point, this technology is ancient,” Romanoff said, looking around. 

Azalea, being the girl she was, noticed a metal box with receptors in it for various flash drives and whatnot. She took the flash drive out of her pocket and gently pushed it into one of the two sticking out at the top. Suddenly, machines around them buzzed to life, lights in the back illuminating themselves. “Initiate System?” a voice said, the words in green. Natasha walked towards it. “Y-E-S spells yes,” she said. They heard the computer power up. “Shall we play a game? It’s from a movie that was really-“

“I know, I saw it,” Steve replied. The screen flickered green dots until what looked like some skull-like figure appeared. It always flickered, green dots disappearing and reappearing constantly.

It said, in a German accent, “Rogers, Steven, born 1918.” The camera moved over to Azalea. “Han, Azalea Rose, born 1984.” Azalea’s lips tightened. “Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984.”

“It’s some kind of recording,” Natasha said, trying to make sense of the machine.

It replied, a little agitated, “I am not a recording, Fraeulein. I may not be the prisoner I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945. But I am.” In a computer, or screen, next to it, a picture of a man with glasses, an annoyed look, and a very large forehead appeared. 

“Who is this?” Azalea asked, feeling like she knew the answer already.

Rogers replied, looking around, “Armin Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He’s been dead for years.”

“First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive,” Zola responded. “In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving, on 200,000 feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain.”

“How did you get here?” Steve demanded.

“Invited.”

“It was Operation Paperclip after World War II. S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value,” Azalea said in a blank tone.

Zola continued, “They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own.”

“HYDRA died with the Red Skull,” Rogers argued.

“Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.” On the machine flickered HYDRA’s symbol. The head popped back, splitting into two. 

Azalea, who had been silent for a while, replied, “Prove it.” On several screens flickered images, too fast for Azalea to read. “Accessing archive,” Zola said. “HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom.” Pictures of HYDRA popped up. “What we did not realized was that if you try to that freedom, they resist.” This time, American soldiers, including Rogers himself. “The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its own freedom willingly.” This time, utter chaos. “After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded, and I was recruited.” Pictures of S.H.I.E.L.D. back in the beginning and Zola showed. “The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed.” More chaos. Azalea pursed her lips more tightly. 

“That’s impossible. S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you,” Natasha said, her voice nearly unrecognizable. 

Zola replied, showing a news clipping of Howard and Maria Stark’s announced death, “Accidents will happen. HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once a purification process is complete, HYDRA’s new world order will arise.” Steve’s jaw tightened as it said, “We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life. A zero sum.” He shattered the screen of the computer with his fist. Azalea gave him a sharp look, then whipped her head around to see Zola on another screen. “As I was saying,” he began.

“What’s on this drive?” Rogers demanded.

Zola replied, “Project Insight requires insight. So, I wrote an algorithm.”

“What kind of algorithm? What does it do?” Natasha said quickly. Azalea felt her phone buzz. She frowned and took it out, swiping up and letting the app that alerted her open.

She paled instantly. “Guys.”

“The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it.” The elevator door behind them closed. Rogers threw his shield at it in an attempt to keep it open.

Natasha took out her beeping phone. “Steve, we got a bogey,” she said.

“Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops,” Azalea said, putting her phone away and grabbing the drive.

“Who fired it?” Rogers replied.

Natasha looked up from her phone, aghast. “S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it. It’s better this way. We are, both of us, out of time.” 

“Everyone huddle against me!” Azalea ordered, her tone so sharp nether Natasha nor Steve dared defy her. She took seeds out of her pocket and threw them on the ground, then closed her eyes, hands outstretched. In seconds, the vines became a protective shield around them. stretching underneath them as well. “Hang on!” she said, then pointed her hands downwards. In seconds, along with the sound of crushed concrete, was the stomach-dropping sensation of going down too quickly. Like being on a roller coaster, but not as fun. Overhead they heard an explosion and felt shaking, but were otherwise alright. Azalea stopped. She moved her hands upwards, and they went up yet again.

“What are you doing?” Rogers asked, clearly believing they should stay underground.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.’ll be here any minute to make sure you two are dead. We don’t have long,” Azalea replied. They had apparently touched the surface, ash and smoke seeping through the vine walls. They moved to the right for a bit, then the vines unwrapped. Azalea bid behind a boulder, then rushed them out. Behind them was the faint sound of helicopter, but thankfully they’d escaped before long. “Okay, so what now? We have to assume anyone and everyone involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. is HYDRA. Who’s safe now?”

Steve thought for a bit, wiping sweat off of his face. “I know a guy.”


End file.
